Chapter Fifty-Nine

**

“You gonna stick by me?”

“Maybe….”

**

“I don’t know,” Jamie said slowly. “It’s just…I’m not even really his type, am I? He’d probably only want to hang around me to try to fuck a virgin or whatever…”

“You’re still a virgin?” I asked, not really surprised.

“Yeah…” Jamie answered, blushing. “I haven’t even ever really dated anyone…”

“Really?” Mia asked.

“It’s my parents…” Jamie explained. “They’re just like…my older sister was all wild and rebellious…so they’re pretty strict with me. Plus, you know, they’re just assholes in general…”

“What’d she do?” I asked, kinda curious.

“What?”

“Your sister…what’d she do that was so wild and rebellious?”

“Oh,” Jamie started. “Well, Carly…that’s her name…she’s three years older than me. Uhm…well, she used to do drugs…started when she was about thirteen or fourteen. I think she’s tried just about everything out there…almost died from overdosing a few times…”

I couldn’t help looking over at Amber. She just sat there, nodding. I didn’t know everything that’d gone on with her, but I knew she used to do meth, and I knew she’d gotten pretty bad a few times. Hell, one time Leon even had to like…carry her home after she’d passed out at a club… I knew he’d been pretty scared something horrible was gonna happen to her, like with his friend Carlos…

“My parents sent her to rehab like a million times, but nothing ever changed her. And then towards the middle of her sophomore year, she started hanging around this guy, Josh. He was a football player…a senior. Practically the exact opposite of Carly…perfect student, all of that. Everyone was totally shocked that they were a couple, but they really loved each other. It sounds so clichéd, but…yeah, total opposites attract sort of thing, I guess. And it worked. They were great together.”

“So…your parents would’ve been happy, though, right?” Mia asked. “That she got together with this great guy…”

“Yeah,” Jamie laughed. “You’d think, wouldn’t you? And they were pretty happy, at least at first. But…it was like Josh was Carly’s new drug…like she couldn’t go even a few hours without seeing him. She started sneaking out even more, spending the night over at his house… And nothing my parents did or said to her made a difference. She did whatever she wanted to. God, I used to admire her so much…” Jamie drifted off, like she was lost in her memories or something.

“So…what happened to them?” I asked, after Jamie didn’t say anything else for a few minutes.

“Oh,” she said, looking up quickly, like she’d almost forgotten we were there. “Well, in July, literally like, the day before Josh was supposed to leave for football camp at Florida State, Carly found out she was pregnant. And she freaked out…threatened to slit her wrists and all…”

“Wow,” Mia said lowly.

“Yeah,” Jamie laughed, a little self-consciously. “My sister, the psycho. But Josh was really great about it all… My parents, now they were a completely different story. They wanted her to have an abortion, said if she kept the baby they’d kick her out of the house and never speak to her again, ‘cause they weren’t about to be stuck raising another kid.”

“Damn…” I muttered.

“Yeah, exactly,” Jamie said, laughing again. “My parents, the complete assholes. Anyways…Josh’d had a full scholarship lined up… He was going to drop it, but then he like, talked to the coaches or someone at Florida State and worked out a deal with them. They were just amazing, really. I guess they really wanted him on their football team. He stayed in town for a few more weeks, to get things kind of settled. Carly got emancipated, they left, and I haven‘t seen them since… I have pictures, though…one she sent me from their wedding, the two of them front of some Elvis chapel. The typical tacky Vegas wedding…and I know Carly loved every second of it…she adores shit like that. After they got to Tallahassee, they moved into a townhouse on campus, where a lot of other families live. Carly got a job in the health center, and Josh went to classes and played on the team. And I rented out a P.O. Box so I could get letters from them without my parents finding out.”

“Your parents didn’t change their minds?” Amber asked, “After they saw that things were gonna work out okay for your sister?”

“Nope,” Jamie sighed. “And if you asked them, they’d say they only have one kid - me.”

We all kind of grimaced at that, and Jamie bust out laughing.

“Really…Carly is lucky!” she said. “God, I’m more jealous of her now than I ever was before… You have to hear the rest of the story.”

“So tell us already!” Mia demanded, leaning forward across the table.

“Okay, okay…” Jamie laughed. “Let’s see… Oh yeah, Carly got her GED and then had her baby in early October. Ravenna, after the city Josh’s ancestors are from in Italy.”

“Pretty…” Amber said softly.

“Then,” Jamie went on, “during spring semester Carly started this nursing program they have. It only takes two years to finish it and become an RN. She’s gonna be done with that in December. She got all kinds of grants and scholarships, ‘cause of having Ravenna…actually, I think it ended up that they were paying her to go to school, if you can believe that. Crazy. And they have this daycare for students over by where they live, so she could go to classes without having to worry about Ravenna. Josh is a senior now, he’s gonna be graduating next May. Advertising major. He’s been working as a security guard at concerts and stuff with a bunch of other guys from the team. Plus he’s been doing some short-term internships with advertising firms. He’s even got a few contacts lined up already for jobs after graduation. But there’s a pretty good chance that he’s gonna be drafted into the NFL. He wants to play for the Miami Dolphins…I’m kinda hoping for the 49ers or the Raiders or the Rams, though, so they’ll be closer…”

“Damn,” Mia said, almost to herself. “Maybe I should’ve gotten pregnant and married…sounds like a pretty good way to put yourself through school!”

“Yeah,” Jamie laughed. “Of course, they guy has a lot to do with it…I think a lot of guys might just leave you to fend for yourself, you know? Lucky for Carly that Josh isn’t anything like that…he never even questioned that they were going to have the baby and raise her themselves. I‘m not saying he‘s completely perfect or anything, but…pretty damn close!”

“It must be hard, though,” Amber said softly, “having a baby and being at school where most everyone else is running around partying or whatever when you have to be at home. It sounds like they get a lot of support from the school, but still…it sounds kind of lonely.”